Chapter 14: She'll come back, Mione.

iberghol's Ron comforting Hermione

the intensity of this is amazing and I didn't want to color or background it because i thought it might take too much of it away.

“Keep reading,” Ron muttered, sitting down next to her on the edge of Harry’s bed. “If you don’t, Harry will go mad when she realizes how much homework she has to do.”

It was meant to be a joke, but Ron’s tone was so miserable and so humorless, not even the most light-hearted of souls would have found it in them to laugh. Instead, it made her cry. She spun around and collapsed against his chest, unable to stop the heavy sobs that wracked her body. She clutched his shirt and balled his sleeve in her fist, wanting to sink into him; wanting him to make all of this go away, yet knowing he couldn’t. Of all the many wonderful things that Ron was; a miracle-worker he was not.

Ron wrapped an arm around her shoulders while his other hand came to rest in her hair. “She’ll come back, Mione,” he whispered softly. “I know she will.”

Hermione wasn’t so sure.

Chapter 14: Oi, Potter!

original by burdge-bug

tiny edit

“Oi, Potter!”

Harry let out a shaky breath that she hadn’t known she had been holding. The sultry voice that had interrupted her thoughts caused a shiver of pleasure to shoot up and down her spine. For some reason, her mind went all fuzzy and a searing longing replaced all intelligent thought in her head.

Harry turned around slowly, her body numb with a strange sense of anticipation.

When she saw the owner of the voice, her jaw went slack. At the back of her mind, a strong barrier that had long been shut tight collapsed with a crash. A thousand feelings she had never experienced before rushed over its broken threshold and Harry’s heart began to pound a million miles a minute.

Standing not ten feet away, leaning on the handle of a polished Nimbus Two Thousand, was the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen. She wasn’t really a flawless epitome of beauty like Madame Dupont… but she radiated a certain air of fluid grace and appealing confidence that screamed out, ‘I’m bloody gorgeous and don’t you forget it!’

Her long cherry red hair was whipping ethereally around her freckled face and shoulders in a wind that Harry could barely register. A delicate hand was resting on her shapely hourglass hips; hips that were thrust outward in a way that made her flat stomach muscles casually flex and stretch. She was wearing a tiny Harpies’ training jersey that just barely covered her pert breasts while the creamy skin of her legs was almost entirely exposed by a pair of mind-numbingly short, skin-hugging, exercise cutoffs. The woman’s full pink lips were stretched in a knowing smirk and her light red eyebrows were raised in questioning amusement. Her kind face was so familiar. Harry had seen it somewhere before… but she couldn’t place where.

And her eyes… oh Gods… her eyes.

They were the most brilliant shade of amber brown, flecked with streaks of gold that were shining brightly from the light of the magnificent sunset.

chapter 14: The Impossible Beach

original by earth-water-fire-air

Smiling up at her, the older redhead, voice whistling through the gaps in her teeth, whispered quietly, “You don’t have to. Forwards or backwards… we’ll follow you whichever way you decide to go. Just don’t leave us behind, ‘kay?”

Harry nodded rapidly. “I won’t, Ginny.”

Ginny grinned toothily and jumped on her back, demanding in an excited voice, “Piggy-back ride!”

Harry laughed, wrapped her arms around the small girl’s legs, stood up, and stepped off the dune. They walked for miles along the beach; Ginny singing nursery rhymes while Harry listened to the whisper. With every step along the sand, the urge to follow it became stronger.

Ginny tightened her arms around Harry’s shoulders. “You have to decide soon, Harry… There once was a wizard who sat on a stump, tra la dee, tra la doo, tra la dee!”

Harry stopped to stare out at the magnificent ocean. “But… Which way should I go, Gin?”

Ginny let out a giggle and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter… you have people that want you on both sides… His bum found a rather uncomfortable bump, tra la dee, tra la doo, tra la dee!”

One of mine: Chapter 14: Broken ( NSFW )

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There was nowhere to run; nowhere to hide from the specter of the boy. He could follow her anywhere and everywhere. She couldn’t touch him; couldn’t fight him; couldn’t harm him. If she tried to escape, he’d know instantly. There was nothing she could do; nothing to do except sit and wait for death to take her.

And so she sat in the dark, naked upon the cold wet floor of the Chamber, her eyes cast away from him as she nursed her bruises and cuts.